What Pu'er Are You Drinking

Puerh and other heicha
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wave_code
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:10 pm
Location: Germany

Fri Jan 07, 2022 9:25 am

drinking some Phoenix tuo today, the 2003 from @YeeOnTeaCo. after being away for a couple weeks its been a long time since I was able to sit down with my usual set up, so this felt a real treat. the kind of tea that is delicious but also super easy drinking and puts you in such a relaxed mood that after a couple brews you stop paying attention in the best way possible and it just does its thing. looking forward to digging in to the other cakes I got.

aside from liking everything I've tried from Yee On's warehouse it was really nice to try some Tulin tea that felt like it had some more character to it. always having heard how Tulin was sort of like toned-down Xiaguan given the factory connections I kept trying their teas from different sources and always found it pretty un-interesting regardless of age and feel like I usually see it sold as budget Pu. It seems kind of a shame because for the price it can be quite nice tea, but any of their teas I have had that came from Kunming were totally flat. given time in some better storage though its very different tea.
DailyTX
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Sun Jan 09, 2022 5:29 pm

My Pu erh consumption has slowed down in the last 2-3 months due to the tea tasted different from summer time. Currently, my home is about 55-65 degree and 50-62 humidity depended on the time of day. Summer time, the temperature would increase to 80-100 degree with humidity hovering around 45-55. I started to notice my Sheng tasted more flat once the temperature dropped. I have been sampling one sheng session per week. I suspect that once we hit March, the tea will come back to life again. Today, I am drinking the CNNP 8891, a cake I opened during Summer 2021. The full spectrum of notes are not there yet. Anyone has this issue? Anyone know of a good method to wake up puerh?
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teatray
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Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:36 am

steep #6
steep #6
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2005 Hónghéyuán (shēng) by Nánzhào Tea Factory from YS.

Second session with this tea. Still at the very beginning of my "dark journey" (mwahahaha). Tried 6 shú, 5 shēng pǔ'ěr (1999-2019), and one other hēi chá (tiān jiān) so far, and I like this one best. Apparently a pretty modest tea; the seller himself calls it "not refined". I tasted blind to price & seller notes (insofar as I had forgotten any I might've read) so, perhaps, a testament to my as of yet unrefined tastes.

It starts with a hearty frankincense smokiness that very pleasantly transforms into apple and cherry plum as you resteep. This is also the first shēng (or any tea, TBH) I actually managed to get 10 steeps from. The other shēng mostly got weird after 6 or 7 steeps, and, so far, I'm finding I'm not that much into shú (with one exception, hopefully more to come).
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Balthazar
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Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:05 pm

DailyTX wrote:
Sun Jan 09, 2022 5:29 pm
Anyone has this issue?
Yup. No other cure than playing the waiting game for me. On the upside it makes me appreciate the "sheng months" more.
DailyTX
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Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:32 pm

Balthazar wrote:
Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:05 pm
DailyTX wrote:
Sun Jan 09, 2022 5:29 pm
Anyone has this issue?
Yup. No other cure than playing the waiting game for me. On the upside it makes me appreciate the "sheng months" more.
@Balthazar
It seems the only way to wake the puerh is by maintaining high enough temperature and humidity. I wonder if a dough proofing machine would do the job? I don’t have one at home, it’s definitely worth a try. :lol:
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yinyautong
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Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:48 pm

@DailyTX
I heard that breaking the tea cake into pieces (醒茶) can fasten the waking process too. And thus I had broken few cakes into pieces and stored them into different tea jars. But to be honest, I haven't done any comparison between them so I don't know if it really works.

Going back to the forum topic. I have tried three types of Pu'er tea this week including:

1. 2011 Dayi 100th Anniversary Tea of the 1911 Revolution – Towering Zhongsha (2011 大益辛亥革命100週年紀念茶 – 巍峨中山)

It tasted very fresh, no bitterness and astringent. The body is very thick gummy texture. There was a little aroma of sugar cane. Aftertaste was long and very comfortable and made me feel warm. It felt like some faint tea fragrance would slowly seeped out from the throat to my mouth. The body of the tea soup had become a lighter and lighter from the 5th brews. Since then, though the tea was still delicious and round liked honey water, but the tea rhyme had been weakened.

2. 2012 Lam Kie Yuen Puerh Tea Cake 2012 林奇苑 (群英薈) 老樹圓茶

The fragrance after rinsing had strong pure aged woody scent. The tea soup was super rich and thick in texture. My throat was so comfortable after drinking it as some sweet and minty aftertaste had lingered for a very long time. There was still some bitterness in the first three infusions. The honey and floral notes appeared in the 4th infusion. In the later infusions, there was also some caramel and honey scent maxed with the sweet taste.

3. 2006 Zhongcha Green Big Tree Yiwu Mountain Wild Tea (Classic Collection) 2006 中茶綠大樹易武正山野生茶(典藏品)

After rinsing, there was forrest scent left in the guiwan. In the first two infusions, there was some sweet and comfortable aftertaste but it tasted a bit bland. However, after the 3rd infusion, the taste and aroma of forrest and had appeared along with a slight of wheat taste. The tea body was medium and quite smooth. The sweet and some minty aftertaste made me feel quite relax. The honey and floral taste appeared in the 9th infusion and still persisted in my last 12th infusion.

Please feel free to visit my tea blog to see more details and the photos of those teas. Thanks!

https://yinyautong.wordpress.com
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mrmopu
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Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:44 am

yinyautong wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:48 pm
DailyTX
I heard that breaking the tea cake into pieces (醒茶) can fasten the waking process too. And thus I had broken few cakes into pieces and stored them into different tea jars. But to be honest, I haven't done any comparison between them so I don't know if it really works.

Going back to the forum topic. I have tried three types of Pu'er tea this week including:

1. 2011 Dayi 100th Anniversary Tea of the 1911 Revolution – Towering Zhongsha (2011 大益辛亥革命100週年紀念茶 – 巍峨中山)

It tasted very fresh, no bitterness and astringent. The body is very thick gummy texture. There was a little aroma of sugar cane. Aftertaste was long and very comfortable and made me feel warm. It felt like some faint tea fragrance would slowly seeped out from the throat to my mouth. The body of the tea soup had become a lighter and lighter from the 5th brews. Since then, though the tea was still delicious and round liked honey water, but the tea rhyme had been weakened.

2. 2012 Lam Kie Yuen Puerh Tea Cake 2012 林奇苑 (群英薈) 老樹圓茶

The fragrance after rinsing had strong pure aged woody scent. The tea soup was super rich and thick in texture. My throat was so comfortable after drinking it as some sweet and minty aftertaste had lingered for a very long time. There was still some bitterness in the first three infusions. The honey and floral notes appeared in the 4th infusion. In the later infusions, there was also some caramel and honey scent maxed with the sweet taste.

3. 2006 Zhongcha Green Big Tree Yiwu Mountain Wild Tea (Classic Collection) 2006 中茶綠大樹易武正山野生茶(典藏品)

After rinsing, there was forrest scent left in the guiwan. In the first two infusions, there was some sweet and comfortable aftertaste but it tasted a bit bland. However, after the 3rd infusion, the taste and aroma of forrest and had appeared along with a slight of wheat taste. The tea body was medium and quite smooth. The sweet and some minty aftertaste made me feel quite relax. The honey and floral taste appeared in the 9th infusion and still persisted in my last 12th infusion.

Please feel free to visit my tea blog to see more details and the photos of those teas. Thanks!

https://yinyautong.wordpress.com
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Lucky dog! I have tried the Centennial sheng and shou in the 357 gram cakes. I wish I had got those cakes when I had a chance. The shou is easily the best one I have tasted. Good stuff.
.m.
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Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:45 pm

2001 "Hongyin" from TWL - it's been a year since i tried the last time, but the impression is roughly the same: it is strong on caffeine in a way that makes me feel physically unpleasant (a reason why i avoid coffee). Add to it a slightly metallic aftertaste and it feels like a very different tea than what other people say about it. I'll retry again next year i guess...
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yinyautong
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Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:34 pm

@mrmopu

Thanks mrmopu! I haven’t unwrapped the Shou cakes yet. The ingredients for the big cakes should be a bit different from the small cake. Hope that’s will be as good as the small one. Cheers 🍵
Last edited by yinyautong on Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mrmopu
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Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:05 pm

yinyautong wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:34 pm
mrmopu

Thanks mrmopu! I haven’t unwrapped the Shou cakes yet. The ingredients for the big cakes should be a bit from the small cake. Hope that’s will be as good as the small one. Cheers 🍵
I hope they are. From what I understood there was a big emphasis on the Centennial production. I have only had the small cakes and wish I had gotten the bigger ones before they got pricey. May happiness and good tastes fill your cup my friend!
Andrew S
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Thu Feb 17, 2022 3:30 pm

Some impenetrable chunk of something from the 1990s... It's starting to open up after a long wash and three brews.

I wonder how many decades it would take for something like this to become drinkable in modern dry storage.

Andrew
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mbanu
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Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:51 am

mbanu wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 8:26 pm
(To keep things on topic, my most recent pu'er was more Nor Sun loose, as I was thinking how nice it would be to have pu'er at work without having to break apart a cake and bring it in my own tin.)
More of the same. A very convenient traditionally-stored raw/ripe blend pu'er, nice for work brews, nice for dimsum, an easy gift tea for someone who is unlikely to break a cake, a great example of how a tea doesn't have to be the best at a certain thing provided it has enough versatility to do OK in a bunch of situations it might be called on for.
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mbanu
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Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:58 am

Today is a cooked brick from the Hung Chong Tai Tea Company of Hong Kong (鴻昌泰茶莊) by way of Tak Shing Hong in Los Angeles. Dry stored (no traditional storage flavor), but a very loose brick -- easily came apart in my hands with no need for a knife or pick. Sweet cherry type shou, nice with dimsum. Maybe worth picking up if you need something else from Tak Shing Hong. The packaging looks a lot like a Macau Hualian brick, although I don't know if it's just a coincidence. :) I think that Hung Chong Tai pulled these bricks from a larger 4-brick package, as the individual wrapper doesn't have a shengchan or QS code on it, just their own sticker.
m2193
Posts: 63
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Location: Boston

Sun Mar 06, 2022 4:47 pm

Weather was nice out today, and starting to warm up out here. Did the first young sheng session in a very long time. Not sure what this is exactly, but was from Paul’s mystery box and was just labeled as 今年春茶 [this year’s spring tea]. Not terribly long lasting, but reasonably interesting and enjoyable. Broad shifts of mixed sweet and bitter tastes, with the usual dried apricot notes of young sheng though light. One steep had a minty aftertaste and two of the latter ones had the same aftertaste as one of my jasmine teas, which I haven’t encountered before. Included a wet leaf pic which I don’t often get to do since I usually end up thermos-ing them after and then the leaves turn to mush but this seemed mostly gone. Also adjusting for color on phone camera is pain and I can't usually get it exactly right, but was able to get this reasonably close. Ignoring the broken oolong leaf bits on board background, some char on a couple leaves and some shading variations, but nothing standout and doesn't look to me to be too different from any other young sheng.
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debunix
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Sat Mar 12, 2022 3:43 pm

Hatvala Forest Genie, delicious mild young sheng, with plenty of sweetness, herb, earthy, and so little bitterness. So glad I took the chance on some Hatvala teas after they were mentioned here.
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